By Matthew W. Maxey | Jul 25, 2015
Phil Mickelson…. Jordan Spieth… Tiger Woods… Rickie Fowler… Paula Creamer… Morgan Pressel…. and Nashville, Tenn.
One of these may seem to be out of place in this list, but Nashville and the top names in golf have a lot more in common than many know. Followers of professional golf in the Nashville area certainly know about the PGA TOUR success of local product and Vanderbilt alum Brandt Snedeker, who took home the PGA TOUR’s $10 million FedEx Cup in 2012.
What many are not aware of is that before players like Snedeker, Mickelson, Woods and so many more became household names, they honed their competitive games as youths with the American Junior Golf Association (AJGA).
The AJGA has been called the PGA TOUR of junior golf by some as it is the most competitive golf tour for junior golfers in the nation and one of the most respected in the world.
Nashville has become an important leg of the AJGA’s tour and the Toyota Music City Junior is played each year at Westhaven Golf Club in Franklin, drawing participants from over 15 states. Participants gain entry into the tournament either through points accumulated at other AJGA tournaments and prominent junior golf events, or through a qualifying round – similar to the PGA TOUR tournament qualifying system.
Snedeker credits much of his preparedness for professional golf to his days playing AJGA tournaments, saying, “It was great to kind of get a sense of what professional golf was going to be like. A lot of traveling, three and four round events, practice rounds, how to prepare and how to be ready for an event when it came time to tee it up.”
Conducting national junior golf tournaments since 1978, the AJGA has developed a mission much larger than just providing an opportunity for junior golfers to compete against each other. The full mission of the AJGA is to dedicate itself to the overall growth and development of young men and women who aspire to earn college golf scholarships through competitive golf. In the last 10 years over 6,000 AJGA members have signed college golf scholarships.
“The amount of talent that is coming out of [Tennessee] now is phenomenal,” said AJGA Southeast Regional Director Ryan Tahara. “It’s really neat to see, and I think it has a lot to do with guys like Brandt Snedeker and Scott Stallings and their investment into the game of golf and growing it on the junior level.”
At an AJGA Tournament, the participants aren’t the only extremely talented people you will see. The AJGA is also home to one of the hardest working staff of professionals you’ll see, and one of the most rigorous internship programs in the country. Each AJGA tournament is staffed by only a few full time employees along with a team of traveling interns that spend the entire summer going city-to-city around the country. When I, the author of this story, was an AJGA intern back in 2006, I traveled over 10,000 miles and visited over 21 states in only a four month span.
The AJGA’s strenuous schedule and commitment to perfection in every aspect have made their staff and internship alumni very attractive to future employers. Alexis Witman, Communications Coordinator for the Nashville Predators, began her career with the AJGA as an intern and later joined the full-time staff.
“The AJGA does many, many things well, and one of those things is their internship experience,” she noted. “I’m a firm believer that I wouldn’t be where I am professionally without the time I spent as both a member of the AJGA’s internship staff and as a member of the full-time communications staff.”
If you get the chance to see the next generation of golfers up close at a Music City Junior, set your expectations high. The play on the course will be amazing and the environment produced by the staff will be reminiscent of a professional tour stop.
Tags: AJGA, American Junior Golf Association, Brandt Snedeker, Nashville Predators, Toyota Music City Junior, Westhaven Golf Club